


The Colors Are So Alive

by vanishing_time



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Art, Established Relationship, Fluff, He's still not boring, M/M, Painting, Wilson has hidden talents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-03 19:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10973922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanishing_time/pseuds/vanishing_time
Summary: Wilson never ceases to be surprising.





	The Colors Are So Alive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alternatealto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternatealto/gifts).



> Nothing special, just some silly little fluff.  
> (Aka in memoriam the days I used to paint.)

The brush is sliding across the canvas, leaving a thick and a thinner trail behind, complementary colors swirling and dancing over the microscopic, rectangular ridges of the material; and Wilson is humming merrily to a song of Village People broadcasted by his old pocket radio.

The small room (his  _ studio, _ as Wilson likes to call it) has huge curtains that partially cover the sight of the suburban landscape, letting in the late afternoon light. A waft of wind through the window mixes the scent of sunlight-warmed tempera and canvas with the artificial smell of paper, diluent and water. 

Wilson has always liked the smell, the texture, and the way the pigment coated the contrasting surfaces, ever since he was a little boy, stealing his mother's lipstick and drawing on the walls ― his aspirations of creating graffiti broken down early by his parents; instead they gave him chalks and crayons and tempera, and he used everything he could paint on - concrete, stones, paper, bedsheets.... He smiles to himself. If only his friends and colleagues saw the photos of tiny Jimmy artfully working on some pieces, covered in paint, tongue sticking out while doodling childishly...

Only a handful of people know that he kept this habit.

Another patch, his hand casting a shadow over his work, and he steps back, watching his unfinished  _ masterpiece  _ with narrowed eyes, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

It’s taking shape.

He smiles around a thin brush caught between his teeth.

A different color, achromatic gray and glistening silver. He has to choose carefully… In the twilight you don't apply the color you  _ think  _ you see when using a model. You have to paint what you  _ actually  _ see, how the tone of the skin changes, how a simple sheet takes up another shade. In unusual lightnings, colors can become relative; blue can turn white, black can turn gold.

His hands and arms are covered in stains, as well as his once blinding white shirt.

He looks at his progress, really satisfied by the result so far. His memory seems to be functioning well after all.

Okay, that's not the complete truth ― sometimes he uses photographs when he needs a singular part that can be seen perfectly with the mind's eye but what is hard to put to canvas. He uses photos of hospital articles… Photos he sometimes takes in secret.

He feels warmth in his heart.

Now  _ this, _ this is a painting he doesn't need reference for. He memorized the details so well that he thinks he'll remember them even after he's dead.

He’s learned the outlines of the body of the person he’s been so obsessed with. 

The feet ― the second toe slightly longer than the first, which always makes him grin. The hairs on the tops of them, reminding him of a little hobbit's, even though their owner is the farthest thing from a hobbit Wilson can imagine. Toenails, polished red (imperial red, he recalls) once as a prank ― who can resist to rag their sleeping partner? Surprisingly the other didn’t kill him after, just lay back on the sofa in a provocative position, legs thrown into the air in spitz, fingers sliding over the thighs, eyebrows wiggling at him.

He laughs at the memory, shaking his hips to the rhythm as another song starts to play.

Ankles and shins. He applies more pigment, experimenting with diverse shades in the soft orangish lightning. It’s getting dark, but he’s so lost in work that he doesn’t even realize it. He loves to try various artistic techniques, and he’s spent a great amount of time looking up the works of famous painters or contemporary artists and replicating them. He hasn't quite yet found his own style but he doesn't care, he’s not interested in fame, he just wants to create. To relax. To have fun.

To document his soul for the future.

This feeling of  _ creating  _ is almost otherworldly, almost like a journey of discovery; he’s the ruler of the paint and the material, their smooth texture caressing his skin almost like a lover; and yet they’re separate entities, and no matter how hard he tries, the colors have their own life, their own will, not always acting like he intends them to, but adding their own ideas to the outcome.

Strong calves, evidence of a sportsman’s past, angular muscle protruding with the movements, tender network of pale blue veins, carrying blood, circulating life.

More brush strokes, he's correcting the smaller mistakes he's made.

Thighs.

A part of him is still a doctor, using his anatomy knowledge to make the ratios and angles perfect, to capture the way the muscles stick to the bones and joints.  _ "A fibrous joint capsule surrounding the bones' articulating surfaces, filled with synovial fluid, keeping the bones together structurally, and the synovial membrane seals in the fluid… _ " he recites to himself in the back of his mind.

At times like this, when he’s alone and really preoccupied, he can put his inner doctor aside and become just an amateur artist, not wanting to fix injuries but eternalize them.

Though there is one injury that he really wishes he could heal.

His hand stops above the canvas, not quite sure how to continue. His eyes caress over the figure he’s been putting on the material.

_ House. _

House is not a bodybuilder, but his chest is strong and firm, his pectorals still draw the eye, showing nicely but not too pretentiously. Flat stomach, shadow pooling in the slight hollow among the abs. Wilson is thinking about the feel of those muscles under his palm; how the soft bumps, the taut skin move as he tickles them evilly, as he kisses them wickedly. As he scratches them gently, marking them as his.

Wilson swallows, thinking about the shape of that long throat as he puts dark shadows under the chin, thinks about the taste of the jugular, the prickly stubble under his tongue, his loins stirring a little at the imagined sensation, images that are more than fantasies ― they are memories now, they’re more than he ever dared to hope for. He sighs, stroking the canvas with the brush the way the would do with House’s body if he was there. He'd paint on his still flawless body, using it to merge something from both of them into a masterpiece. Something that’s part of them both.

An artist and his muse might never be able to give birth to children, but together, this way they could create something new.

House, of course, doesn’t know anything about this hobby because Wilson’s sure he’d tease the hell out of him in the next fifty years. He doesn't mind the mocking, but this is something else. This is his soul distilled into art; to reveal it requires a higher level of trust, a bigger amount of courage.

 

But Wilson sometimes tends to forget that House is still House, so when the door unexpectedly slams open, he staggers backwards, knocking off a bucket of water, the palette almost slipping out of his fingers.

"There you are!" House’s exultant yelling as he stands in the door reveals how pleased he is with himself, a cheshire cat grin on his face. "It took  _ ages  _ to find where you’re hiding from me! Clever, but not clever enough―"

There’s an abrupt silence as House looks around, and Wilson wants to sink under the ground, his face burning bright red. 

"How in the hell―" he almost asks, but instead he takes a deep breath, reluctantly avoiding eye contact with House, just watching him from the corner of his eye as House comes over to the stand.

Dammit. Now House’s found out about his hobby, and there's no way of escaping Mockery Hell anymore. Not that he can’t tolerate it; in fact he’s used to it by now.

What he’s afraid of is that House might find his paintings stupid.

Or ugly.

Worthless.

He feels out of his body as he’s watching the other man, still drinking in the presence of him despite the clenching of his stomach, listening to his own reactions to House being here.

He existence of him.

Those imperfect steps. 

That wonderful brain.

That beautiful soul.

Wilson inhales deeply, the scent of his beloved mixing with the artificial smell of his non-material object of love, and he doesn’t dare to look at him.

His heart is burst open, exposed for the whole world to see. Vulnerable. Raw. Naked.

House is standing next to him now, words seemingly stuck in his throat, his surprise can be felt even from his posture. He’s slowly, carefully observing the pictures one by one, marveling at this unpublished, unintended exhibition.

Wilson is examining the ground, full of spots and splatters of myriad of shades and chromas, mentally listing the pictures he’s made. The titles he gave, carefully working them into the images to become a part of them.

_ "Color of life"― _

Teal and turquoise highlights, navy blue and sapphire midtones, ultramarine shadows of a felt pen drawing; azure eyes elaborated in the center of a psychedelic image, fractals whirling around those pupils, morphing into geometrical patterns towards the edges of the picture.

_ "It hurts"― _

Carmine and black crayon lines crisscrossing each other, thorn-like silhouettes breaking out of a humanoid being, fingers of a hand biting into the flesh of a thigh, a crooked curve of a spine shivering in agony.

_ "The one I chose"― _

Pencil patches condensing into a strong, precise surgeon’s hand, mint green and mantis and myrtle and shamrock green meeting in a bunch of abstract lines; below there’s blood red and crimson and scarlet, a heart shape burnished angular like a ruby gem, the silver edge and the white glistening of a scalpel slicing it asunder to hurt, to heal.

Many different styles; variations of a single theme.

_ "You"― _

That’s all.

_ You. _

It’s as simple as it is.

Light-kissed cheeks in a renaissance portrait, drapes and heavy materials hugging the naked form of a man, tangerine and yellow and orange and pantone; an homage to Flaming June, House’s body covered by a vermillion sheet, sleeping peacefully despite the heat oozing from the scene.

You.

A hand rises up slowly, touching the fresh paint ever so gently, careful not to smudge it, leaving a fingerprint in the golden tint. Small, tiny gulches, the resulting pattern as unique as the pulsating lines in those sky blue irises.

Wilson squeezes his eyes shut.

"This is…" House’s voice is deep and hoarse like Wilson’s never heard it before. "Is this how you see me?"

Wilson looks up, pain numbing his lips when he realizes he’s been biting them. 

But House’s voice is not taunting. It’s fascinated, stunned...  _ moved. _

Aeons pass until Wilson finally finds his voice.

"How I saw you, see you... and how I wish I saw you," he says, cautiously choosing the words. And now House also has seen him, his true, unvarnished self ― there’s no point of being ashamed anymore. "I see you in a thousand ways. And I―"

As he’s reaching the next word, he realizes that he’s never said it to him before. He's not even sure if he should ever say it.

_ And I love you in each. I love you in your pain and in your happiness. _

He looks again at House, whose eyes have never twinkled like this before in the grayness of the early night, in the first glow of the street lamps, glistening and huge and so mesmerizingly bottomless that Wilson can barely stand it.

But then House is in front of him, millions of expressions on his face, taking the palette from Wilson’s trembling hand, his fingers sliding through the paint. Undoing the buttons of Wilson’s shirt, his hand is pressing to his chest, leaving a crimson palm print above his heart, moving lower to gently scrape his fingernails over his ribcage, his sides.

His touch is so warm.

"This means you’re mine, my artist," House murmurs in his ear, lips hovering above Wilson’s neck, his hand snaking to his nape. 

Wilson can’t help but grin in relief, suddenly feeling light as a feather. He gently opens House’s shirt, admiring the muscles, the spray of hair, the movement of breathing under his hand. He’s reaching for a tube, spreading yellow and golden colors, he’s drawing a tribal sun onto House’s chest ― beams sprouting out of a spiral, his fingertip circling a nipple, feeling it harden under his touch.

Then House’s warmth envelops him, House’s fingers are under his chin, a cheek brushing over his, tickling stubble, tender skin.

"You never fail to surprise me."

Muttered words on Wilson’s mouth, and House’s lips are oh so gentle as they finally cover his, soft like velvet and red like wine; and in that sentence, in that kiss there’s everything else House is unable to tell.

"Trying my best," Wilson smiles after they part, and he lets himself fall backwards into a heap of rainbows, pulling House with him, uncovering him and drawing colorful stripes across his back, his shoulders; and House laughs and smudges clouds and waterfalls and stars on Wilson’s naked body. 

It’s already dark outside, only the light of the street lamps illuminate them, and Wilson kisses colors onto House’s skin, colors that taste like happiness.


End file.
